Mayne Reid - The Child Wife

Kneeling at the window of his room, on the fourth storey – looking down through the slanted laths of the Venetians – he saw the hack drive up, and with eager eyes watched till it was occupied. He saw also the two ladies below; but at that moment he had no thoughts for them.

It was like removing a millstone from his breast – the relief from some long-endured agony – when Maynard entered the carriage; the last spasm of his pain passing, as the whip cracked, and the wheels went whirling away.

Little did he care for that distraught look given by Julia Girdwood; nor did he stay to listen whether it was accompanied by a sigh.

The moment the carriage commenced moving, he sprang to his feet, turned his back upon the window, and called out:

“Fan!”

“Well, what now?” was the response from his pretended servant.

“About this matter with Maynard. It’s time for me to call him out. I’ve been thinking all day of how I can find a second.”

It was a subterfuge not very skilfully conceived – a weak, spasmodic effort against absolute humiliation in the eyes of his wife.

“You’ve thought of one, have you?” interrogated she, in a tone almost indifferent.

“I have.”

“And who, pray?”

“One of the two fellows I scraped acquaintance with yesterday at dinner. I met them again last night. Here’s his name – Louis Lucas.”

As he said this he handed her a card.

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Find out the number of his room. The clerk will tell you by your showing the card. That’s all I want now. Stay! You may ask, also, if he’s in.”

Without saying a word she took the card, and departed on her errand. She made no show of alacrity, acting as if she were an automaton.

As soon as she had passed outside, Swinton drew a chair to the table, and, spreading out a sheet of paper, scribbled some lines upon it.

Then hastily folding the sheet, he thrust it inside an envelope, upon which he wrote the superscription:

“Louis Lucas, Esq.”

By this time his messenger had returned, and announced the accomplishment of her errand. Mr Lucas’s room was Number 90, and he was “in.”

“Number 90. It’s below, on the second floor. Find it, Fan, and deliver this note to him. Make sure you give it into his own hands, and wait till he reads it. He will either come himself, or send an answer. If he returns with you, do you remain outside, and don’t show yourself till you see him go out again.”

For the second time Fan went forth as a messenger.

“I fancy I’ve got this crooked job straight,” soliloquised Swinton, as soon as she was out of hearing. “Even straighter than it was before. Instead of spoiling my game, it’s likely to prove the trump card. What a lucky fluke it is! By the way, I wonder where Maynard can be gone, or what’s carried him off in such a devil of a hurry? Ha! I think I know now. It must be something about this that’s in the New York papers. These German revolutionists, chased out of Europe in ’48, who are getting up an expedition to go back. Now I remember, there was a count’s name mixed up with the affair. Yes – it was Roseveldt! This must be the man. And Maynard? Going along with them, no doubt. He was a rabid Radical in England. That’s his game, is it? Ha! ha! Splendid, by Jove! Playing right into my hands, as if I had the pulling of the strings! Well, Fan! Have you delivered the note?”

“I have.”

“What answer? Is he coming?”

“He is.”

“But when?”

“He said directly. I suppose that’s his step in the passage?”

“Slip out then. Quick – quick!”

Without protest the disguised wife did as directed, though not without some feeling of humiliation at the part she had consented to play.

From the time of the hack’s departure, till the moment when the valet was so hastily sent out of the room, Mr Swinton had been acting as a man in full possession of his senses. The drink taken during the day had but restored his intellect to its usual strength; and with a clear brain he had written the note inviting Mr Louis Lucas to an interview. He had solicited this interview in his own apartment – accompanying the request with an apology for not going to that of Mr Lucas. The excuse was that he was “laid up.”

All this he could have done in a steady hand, and with choice diction; for Richard Swinton was neither dunce nor ignoramus.

Instead, the note was written in scribble, and with a chaotic confusion of phraseology – apparently the production of one suffering from the “trembles.”

In this there was a design; as also, in the behaviour of Mr Swinton, when he heard the footfall of his expected visitor coming along the corridor in the direction of his room. His action was of the most eccentric kind – as much so as any of his movements during the day.

It might have been expected that the ci-devant habitué of the Horse Guards, in conformity with past habits, would have made some attempt to arrange his toilet for the reception of a stranger. Instead, he took the opposite course; and while the footsteps of Mr Lucas were resounding through the gallery, the hands of Mr Swinton were busy in making himself as unpresentable as possible.

Whipping off the dress-coat he had worn at the ball, and which in his distraction he had all day carried on his shoulders; flinging the waistcoat after, and then slipping his arms out of the braces; in shirt-sleeves and with hair dishevelled, he stood to await the incoming of his visitor. His look was that of one just awakened from the slumber of intoxication.

And this character – which had been no counterfeit in the morning – he sustained during the whole time that the stranger remained in his room.

Mr Lucas had no suspicion that the Englishman was acting. He was himself in just that condition to believe in its reality; feeling, and as he confessed, “seedy as the devil.” This was his speech, in return to the salutations of Swinton.

“Yas, ba Jawve! I suppose yaw do. I feel just the same way. Aw – aw – I must have been asleep for a week?”

“Well, you’ve missed three meals at least, and I two of them. I was only able to show myself at the supper-table.”

“Suppaw! Yaw don’t mean to say it’s so late as that?”

“I do indeed. Supper we call it in this country; though I believe in England it’s the hour at which you dine. It’s after eight o’clock.”

“Ba heavins! This is bad. I wemembaw something that occurred last night. Yaw were with me, were you not?”

“Certainly I was. I gave you my card.”

“Yas – yas. I have it. A fellaw insulted me – a Mr Maynard. If I wemembaw awight, he stwuck me in the face.”

“That’s true; he did.”

“Am I wight too in my wecollection that yaw, sir, were so vewy obliging as to say yaw would act for me as – as – a fwend?”

“Quite right,” replied the willing Lucas, delighted with the prospect of obtaining satisfaction for his own little private wrong, and without danger to himself. “Quite right. I’m ready to do as I said, sir.”

“Thanks, Mr Lucas! a world of thanks! And now there’s no time left faw fawther talking. By Jawve! I’ve slept so long as to be in danger of having committed myself! Shall I wite out the challenge, or would yaw pwefer to do it yawself? Yaw know all that passed, and may word it as yaw wish.”

“There need be no difficulty about the wording of it,” said the chosen second, who, from having acted in like capacity before, was fairly acquainted with the “code.”

“In your case, the thing’s exceedingly simple. This Mr or Captain Maynard, as he’s called, insulted you very grossly. I hear it’s the talk of the hotel. You must call upon him to go out, or apologise.”